In the American Grain

By AAVV

We are pleased to present to our European readers “In The American Grain”. This anthology is a fine selection of the best contemporary American poets, who have won the most important awards of the American literary critics in recent years. Among the poems collected in this anthology, you will have the chance to read the verses of illustrious authors such as Forrest Gander, Rae Armantrout and Vijay Sheshadri, winners of the prestigious Pulitzer Prize. Present as well, several other authors recognised by the critics of the Walt Witman Award, Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, Griffin Poetry Prize and the Young People’s Poet Laureate. It is an important opportunity for us to bring the best of American poetry to European readers, something not too well known to the wide readership in Europe. 
We therefore invite our readers to surprise themselves and discover new verses, through the purest example of an art that is deeply alive in the USA, flowing impetuously through American veins.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Europa Edizioni
• Release date: Jan 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9791220122696

Book preview

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© 2021 Europa Edizioni s.r.l. | Roma

www.europaedizioni.it - [e-mail]

ISBN 979-12-201-xxxx-x

I edizione gennaio 2021

Finito di stampare nel mese di gennaio 2021

presso Rotomail Italia S.p.A. - Vignate (MI)

Distributore per le librerie Messaggerie Libri S.p.A.

In the American Grain

Threa Almontaser

Born and raised in New York, Threa Almontaser is a Yemeni American poet and scholar. Her forst poetry collection, The Wild Fox of Yemen, won the Walt Whitman award of the Academy of American Poets.

Heritage Emissary

As designated translator, I taste saffron, gold coins, 

a slight burning. Since I’ve returned, there has been less 

of me in English. Though return always meant measuring

the earth’s door, tongue ozoned and still learning 

to stretch between here and home. Sah, my native 

speech is like a window sash pulled up wa down. 

Sah, I shift phrases without thought. Classmates tilt

at my returned self like I grew horns, can shoot bombs 

out my ass. Like they want to dump me in ma’a, 

watch me float like a witch. When I Arabic my way

towards them, they pat my back in case I hack mucus 

wa dem. What do you call a word the mouth has forgotten 

to push out, stuck by the tonsil’s entrance, squirming 

to be sound? Speech becomes a slagged pot I bang crude beats on. I long to play a song that doesn’t terrorize, 

a song that’s understood. The mushkila is I am a surging current of feared language. Words have stopped arriving easily. Was it Rumi who said silence is the language 

of God and all else is poor translation? I am not mathaluhum. I can’t properly translate myself, 

so a settled lake floats my tongue hush. I part

       need I steam senseless of shrouds spout and lips my

         don’t I proof need I with accent my sink to dictionary a 

                        .sense make still can I that, cooing blurred a like sound                 

I lie about my D in Algebra. Turn, She daydreams 

during lessons into, Qaluu I pay attention to detail. 

Turn, She’s suspended for fighting into, I’m such a good

student, they gave me a day off. Each rephrasing 

Pinocchio’s my nose. I am out of breath from so much code-switching, crunching the sand it leaves my teeth. 

When threatened with a call home, I shrug, Taib. 

Go ahead. They’ll say, yes yes, but won’t yafhumun, 

will ask me about it later so I can twist it. At dinner, 

Baba tells a story of his childhood in Yemen. 

About catching a wild fox with his cousin–—Arabic 

the medium through which his body can